I was standing onstage behind Ricky Skaggs, the legendary bluegrass musician, before a crowd of more than 1,500 people at the Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium in Brevard, North Carolina. It was a Saturday night in late May, and we were playing the finale, Skaggs’ version of the classic song “Uncle Pen” by Bill Monroe. Lined up in rows next to me stood about 130 other students holding acoustic guitars, each of us waiting on the song’s refrain to come in with an emphatic lick called a “G run.” There was plenty of nervous energy in our group, but when the chorus came around, we hit the notes in unison and Skaggs looked back at us with a smile. He was putting on a show that night with some of the best bluegrass musicians in the world, and for the moment, we were part of the band.
Our performance was the culmination of Blue Ridge Guitar Camp, an intensive program at the Brevard Music Center, a wooded 180-acre campus in western North Carolina with stages, rehearsal spaces, cabins, and plenty of room for jam sessions. As a mediocre player with little experience in traditional bluegrass, I was way out of my league. The host of the camp, Bryan Sutton, is the most awarded flat-picker in the history of the genre, and he had assembled a star-studded roster of instructors. My fellow students, who ranged in age from mid-teens to mid-seventies and came from a dozen countries, were pretty intimidating, too, showing a mastery of their instruments and a deep knowledge of old-time songs. But from the minute I arrived, I felt encouraged to jump in. “This is a safe place,” Sutton said on our first night. “This is a community where we know that everybody is doing the same thing, whether you’re a relative newbie or an experienced player. We are all continuing to learn, and that’s the energy I like to bring here.”
The Brevard Music Center has hosted classical music summer programs here since the 1940s, but the idea to expand to banjo, guitar, and fiddle camps is relatively new. The spark came from Woody Platt, a singer and songwriter who grew up in the area and went on to found the Grammy Award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers. When Platt realized the center wasn’t being used for several weeks during the shoulder seasons, he reached out to Béla Fleck, one of the greatest banjo players on the planet. Fleck had never put his name on a camp before, but he was intrigued by the pitch and loved the region, with its deep history of fiddlers, pickers, and players. Platt got Blue Ridge Banjo Camp, led by Fleck, off the ground in 2018, and the following year, he reached out to Sutton about starting a guitar version. After a few conversations and a golf cart ride around the campus, he was sold. “I loved the idea of coming back here—kind of home, if you will,” Sutton told me. “I knew how beautiful it was and the majesty of this whole place. So there were so many boxes checked.”
A Family Tradition
Sutton grew up in a musical family in Candler, North Carolina, just west of Asheville. “My grandfather was part of the scene, so we had a little band—my dad, my grandfather, my sister, and some other friends of ours,” he told me one afternoon between classes. “[The music] was just a constant conversation that never really stopped.” By the time he was in his early twenties, he was touring with Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder and earning a reputation for being one of the best flat-pickers in bluegrass.
His father, Jerry, has pitched in as a jam facilitator since the first session in 2022. In the evenings, he hosts something called the “slow jam,” which is meant for less experienced players who can get a little intimidated—like me. On several nights after the day’s activities had wrapped up, I found my way to a group of about 15 folks sitting in a circle around him with guitars in their laps. If anyone had an idea, he would encourage it, but otherwise he’d start into a simple fiddle tune like “Red Haired Boy” or “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” patiently telling us the chords. One night, he shared his son’s philosophy about learning. “A person who wants to improve should be a reflective person who allows himself to be vulnerable to mistakes,” he said.
Passing It On
After a few days of lessons, practice, and watching inspiring performances, I started gaining a little confidence. I can’t say I was getting better, but I felt more comfortable singing a verse or playing a solo (even a bad one). I was also learning an appreciation for how this music has been passed down for generations. Instead of looking at our phones, we were gathered together in the heart of Appalachia, sharing chords and lyrics that were written a hundred years ago…